For over a month, protesters in Minneapolis have courageously resisted ICE’s abuse of power in their state. In this maelstrom, disinformation, government power, and press freedom have collided. Here are six key takeaways that underscore what’s at stake for both professional and citizen journalism during a crisis.
1. The federal government cements the use of disinformation as official propaganda
This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.
Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin
One of the clearest lessons from Minneapolis was how quickly the federal government resorted to false or unverified narratives in its official messaging to justify its actions. Within hours of federal agents killing two civilian protesters, writer Renée Nicole Good and ICU nurse Alex Pretti, multiple government leaders tarred the victims as “domestic terrorists” and “assassins” on social media. These comments came long before any investigation was completed or evidence was made available. The administration effectively asked the public not to believe their own eyes, but the false claims quickly collapsed under the weight of bystander video, local reporting, and forensic analysis.
In another egregious incident, the official White House social media account shared a photo of civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong—who was arrested during a protest that disrupted a church service in St. Paul—that had been digitally altered to darken her skin and make it appear as if she were crying. The original image, first posted by the Department of Homeland Security, showed Armstrong calm and composed. The intention, according to Armstrong, was “to show the world a false iteration of that time to make me look weak,” she told The New York Times.
The Trump administration has embraced the use of disinformation—from false smears and doctored photos to sharing misleading and mis-labeled immigration video footage—to shape public perception. This is a deliberate strategy to obscure the truth and undermine accountability.
2. The federal government will trample the Constitution to punish journalists
Once the protest started in the church, we did an act of journalism, which was report on it and talk to the people involved, including the pastor, members of the church and members of the organization. That’s it. That’s called journalism.
Independent journalist Don Lemon
The arrests of journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort marked a dangerous escalation in the federal government’s willingness to criminally prosecute reporters for doing their jobs. Lemon was taken into custody on charges that he violated federal law while covering a protest in a St. Paul church, even though both a federal magistrate judge and a federal appeals court had already rejected the evidence against him. Fort, co-founder of the Minnesota-based Center for Broadcast Journalism, was also arrested by federal agents for her coverage of the same event. Their arrests were not about enforcing the law, but about intimidating journalists to discourage reporting critical of the administration.
In addition to these shocking artists, reporters in Minnesota have been shoved, threatened, grabbed, and tear-gassed by federal officers, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. These actions come on the heels of a federal raid on a Washington Post reporter’s home, during which agents confiscated her electronic devices. Alongside a growing list of Trump administration actions targeting journalists over the past year, these incidents reveal an escalation of government abuses of power to deflect accountability and intimidate a free press.
3. Disinformation thrives in information vacuums—even brief ones
“This page exists to correct the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) repeated false claims regarding the Minnesota Department of Corrections’ (DOC) cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Minnesota Department of Corrections’s “Combatting DHS Misinformation” page
When official statements are false, delayed, contradictory, or incomplete, disinformation rushes in to fill the void. In Minneapolis, this vacuum was quickly filled by claims that top state officials were secretly directing anti-ICE activity through Signal chats and that victims of the shootings were “domestic terrorists”—all claims that spread widely before evidence was available.
These narratives traveled rapidly through social media, conservative influencer networks, and partisan media outlets, while responsible journalists paused to confirm video, interview witnesses, and seek bystander and expert responses. This imbalance in coverage – where partisan influencers post unverified information quickly as credible journalists are still reporting the facts—also affects responses from chatbots, such at ChatGPT or Google Gemini, about the news. These chatbots are based on what’s publicly available, which may, at times, disproportionately be a one-sided, unverified story.
In one striking example, false claims about state-to-federal custody transfers became so pervasive that the Minnesota Department of Corrections created a webpage to correct federal misinformation in real time. The state Corrections Department wrote, in a post, that “DHS is justifying an unprecedented federal deployment into Minnesota communities based on the demonstrably false narrative that Minnesota refuses to honor ICE detainers.”
False narratives move in minutes, while verification can take hours or days. In an information ecosystem that rewards speed over accuracy, the events in Minneapolis show how easily unverified narratives can shape public perception before journalism has a chance to catch up.
4. Narratives are created by mischaracterizing lawful activity, then elevated through official action
I have infiltrated organizational signal groups all around Minneapolis with the sole intention of tracking down federal agents and impeding/assaulting/and obstructing them. BUCKLE UP ALL WILL BE REVEALED.
Right-wing influencer Cam Higby
“As soon as Higby put that post out, I opened an investigation on it.”
– FBI director Kash Patel
Influencer-driven narratives and the partisan media ecosystem increasingly reinforce one another, creating feedback loops that can pull government authorities into action. In Minnesota, mischaracterization of lawful community organizing became the trigger for official federal investigation.
Minneapolis communities have been using the encrypted messaging app, Signal, to share information about ICE activity and organize protests. A right-wing influencer publicly claimed to have “infiltrated” these groups and framed their existence as evidence of obstruction. His posts were then amplified across the right-leaning media ecosystem, where speculation hardened into allegations that Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (D) was secretly orchestrating anti-ICE actions, even though no evidence supported that claim.
Federal authorities then announced they had opened an investigation of the Signal chats based on the social media posts from the influencer. Responsible journalists correctly declined to present these allegations as fact.
5. Local journalists and bystanders became the frontline defenders of facts
We have a portal where people can submit anything they think might be evidence, including video that you think could be helpful in this investigation.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty
In Minneapolis, the most effective counter-narratives to the rampant disinformation being spread by both the federal government and the rightwing media ecosystem came from the ground. Photos and videos from bystanders and journalists quickly helped to contradict federal claims justifying ICE violence as “self-defense” against “terrorist intent,” supplying primary-source evidence that journalists could verify, authenticate, and place in context.
In other words, documentation by citizen journalists proved not only complementary to, but an extension of fact-based reporting. Local and national reporters then turned this documentation into a public record: confirming timelines, identifying locations, explaining neighborhood dynamics, and connecting the dots into a more accurate, coherent narrative.
Federal agents have seized cellphones from witnesses, falsely claimed it was illegal to film them, and in some cases damaged photojournalists’ equipment. Such actions are deeply alarming because documentation by both citizens and professional journalists is protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The right to record government activity is inseparable from press freedom. When that foundational right is threatened, accountability collapses.
6. Responsible, sustained local reporting protects democratic discourse
The press are the defenders of our democracy. You need to be there.
– Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz
Finally, Minneapolis demonstrates that journalism is not just about accuracy, but also transparency. By separating facts from allegations, local and national reporters prevent unproven claims from becoming accepted truth. Their work is an antidote to the hijacking of public debate and historical record by rumor or partisan spin.
Local reporters have been working around the clock in Minnesota to document what is happening in their state, from legacy outlets like the Minnesota Star Tribune to smaller nonprofit outlets like Sahan Journal, which has used community reporting on immigration and ICE to provide context that helped shape broader national understanding. By grounding coverage in lived local experiences, Minnesota-based outlets are setting the foundation for responsible reporting at all levels.
The events in Minneapolis show how independent journalism—and bystander documentation—are pillars of free expression and information integrity. When reporters are supported, they can correct disinformation, document power, and serve the public interest. When they are weakened, democracy pays the price.
